Whole Foods accused of cheating workers

ONE current and one former employee of a District of Columbia Whole Foods store filed a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday against the grocery chain, alleging that the company cheated them out of bonuses.

Last week, Whole Foods said that nine managers at stores in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia were fired for gaming the chain’s “gainsharing” program, which awards bonuses to employees whose departments come in under budget. Whole Foods didn’t explain the nature of the manipulation or say which locations were affected, saying only that the incident was under investi- gation and isolated to a small number of its 457 stores.

Now, in a lawsuit filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia, a current and a former employee of the Whole Foods location on P Street in Northwest Washington say that the chain “engaged in a nationwide scheme to strip hardworking employees of earned bonuses in order to maximise their own profit”.

Under gainsharing, the suit alleges, employees of departments that come in under budget are supposed to share in surpluses, but Whole Foods avoided paying by shifting labour costs to other departments. The chain also created “fast teams” – employees that “float from one department to another” and “shifted labor costs among departments without properly accounting for it,” the suit says.

A spokeswoman for Austinbased Whole Foods said the company is investigating the allegations.

The suit also claims the shifts in labour were made around the country with knowledge of executives, and that “at least twenty thousand [potentially many more] past and present employees” were affected. “It is believed that this is a nationwide practice,” the suit says.

The suit seeks $200 million in punitive damages and triple unpaid wages, among other relief. One plaintiff, Michael Molock, of the District, has worked at Whole Foods since 2012 and makes up to $13 per hour; the other, Randal Kuczor, also of the District, worked at the chain from 2003 to 2015 and made up to $20.85 per hour.